Fat Freddys Drop & Their Blackbird Live @ The Tivoli

Ten years ago I went to a gig in Sydney where I found some of the sweetest, tastiest jazzy/dubby/electronic music I’ve ever heard live. In a moment of excitement about my great musical find I told my friend Sammy “Fat Freddys Drop is the best band in the world”. He has laughed at me about that statement ever since – and would never let me take it back.

I don’t actually think Fat Freddys Dropis the best band in the world. I was silly for having said that any 1 band is the best band in the world.

But I do think that a live musical journey with Fat Freddys Drop is always a pretty special one to go on.

I went to their gig at The Tivoli in Brisbane on the weekend- part of the Australian tour promoting the release of their new album Blackbird.

Fat Freddys Drop at the Tivoli

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I must have had 10+ live Fat Freddys Drop experiences by now. I can’t say that The Tivoli gig was the the best of them.

I can say the things I loved about The Tivoli gig are the same things that I have always loved about Fat Freddys Drop:

Their marathon-long live songs – where the music changes through that long journey, they jam out, and there are lots of awesome solos by each of the quality musicians that they are.

The minimalist vocals of Joe Dukie.

The subtle hornlines in the right places- and the even better horn solos.

Thefat bass lines DJ Fitchie creates. I love most things he does musically, but I can still never help wishing for that special energy that I think comes from having a live bass and drums.

At each Fat Freddys Drop gig the the same song will nearly always sound different.

With distinctive Pacific IslandAotearoa sounds…like so many other great contemporary artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand making fusion music from those genres.

All copies of Blackbird sold out at the gig so I can’t tell you anything about it yet sorry :(. I was so relieved though that Fat Freddys Drop actually had good old fashioned CDs for sale at their gig.

You can even buy it on sweet sounding vinyl.

For now I have a videoof Blackbird, their opening song at The Tivoli gig + some mp3 version (sorry for you) sample listening tracks off previous Fat Freddys Drop albums.

Ten years of live Fat Freddys Drop experiences and I keep on going back for more. That’s because I wanna hear their sweet, live marathon tracks where they jam out. I suppose that’s why Live at the Matterhorn is still my favourite Fat Freddys Drop album – a 70 minute CD of only 4 tracks. We’ll see if Blackbird changes that once I get my hands on it.